Begonia Staking?

scaly(6)July 10, 2005

I'm kinda new to begonias. I bought some red and yellow begonia tubers at Home Depot this year and put them in pots. I'm not sure what kind they are, non stop?. Well they are getting big and starting to flower. One red one had a huge flower on it. I noticed the stem drooping and on closer inspection I discovered the stem had snapped. The pots are outdoors. Do I need to stake these? Do they need to be sheltered from wind or rain?

I put the broken stem in a vase to see if the other two or three flower buds will bloom. I hope so. What a huge nice flower.

Uggh!! don't you hate it when a really beautiful or prescious plant gets snapped by the elements (or evil-doers like squirrels) in midglory. I had the bad fortune to leave my lilies in the care of a friend while I was moving and theses lilies were huge and ready to bloom, but then we kept being hit by storm after storm, eventually some snapped and others drowned, AARGH!!!

Anyway, if they snapped off, you probably want to support them well. Living in Oklahoma, it's impossible to have a plant out of the wind, unless it's indoors or somewhere very sheltered since it's always windy here. However, if you support it properly they should do just fine under regular weather conditions... you could try to move them somewhere more sheltered if a big storm comes by, that is if you have them in containers.